BPDFamily.com

Where to begin? I just got out of a "relationship" with a gwBPD.

A little info about myself first though. I'm a guy from Europe in my mid-twenties. For a few years now I've known that I suffer from inverted/covert narcissism. Emotional bonding has been very difficult. I am the classic care-giver/rescuer type. I seek validation through being important to someone. A girl that needs me in order to live? What could be more attractive. My last gf of 2 years was a woman with narcissistic traits herself - in the classical, overt sense - but that's a couple of years behind me. We were fairly happy together, in retrospect I realize that I sacrificed a lot of myself as a person to her, getting over her was difficult. But neither our relationship nor the aftermath was anywhere near as excruciating as my encounter with this BPD girl.

I got to know her online via facebook in the summer of 2016. She said she had just gotten out of a 1-year relationship, she felt empty inside and was very sad. She also confessed to me how she was a very mentally instable person, a crazy girl. It didn't put me off, I wanted to meet her. My prior relationship had been over for a year at that point. I was enjoying the single life, getting to know many people. So me and this girl met, we took things very fast and before I knew it she was at my apartment, we got intimate and spent the night together.

We got to know each other a little, she told me her dad had passed away when she was thirteen. She had always found herself unable to have healthy relationships with anyone, resented the mother who she lived with (she was 18 then). She said she was chronically depressed and would induce in self-harming behaviours. She's been in therapy for years, but it hadn't helped her figure out what was wrong with her and she just wasn't able to lead a functioning life. She had finished school, but barely had any friends, she'd never held a job for longer than a few days. She also mentioned she had been diagnosed - amongst other things - with BPD a few years ago (at a later occasion she would double down on that, stating she had been misdiagnosed). I didn't know about BPD then, but what she said was red flag after red flag to me. Still, there was something intriguing about it. I'll admit, in the beginning it was mostly the very passionate sex (best I've ever had) that made me feel immensely connected to her. It felt like real intimacy. It wasn't about how she behaved in bed, it was about how it made me feel connected to her and that she felt it too - a deep mutual lust for each other.

We met again a week later but this time after we had sex she started crying uncontrollably for almost an hour. She couldn't explain to me why. That's one red flag too many, I thought to myself. I told her the next morning we are better off living seperate lives. She cried again, but seemingly accepted it - we parted in peace.

But over the coming months she slowly drew me back in. She texted me how she had fallen in love with me during our time together and that she missed me. We remained in contact infrequently but never met, as I refused. I was aware of my own personality disorder, knew that it was that which played a role in making her very attractive to me despite not wanting to carry the burden of someone who was more messed up than me. My resolve lasted until early 2017 when after months of occasional contact I agreed to meet her again.

She was very reserved. We got intimate again but she said that I was someone she could never trust since I rejected her so blatantly after our first run-in. From that point onwards the dynamic changed. I dropped my guard. I got hooked. It was now me chasing her. I texted her almost every day, wanted to meet up all the time and acted as the nicest person on earth to her, not caring that she would flake on me multiple times, sometimes not respond to my texts for days, say she can't meet etc.

She became my priority, I needed to see her again. I realised and resented my neediness but my impulses had taken control of me, I was overwhelmed. There was a certain part of my soul that had been locked for as long as I can remember, but her fleeting touch had opened it and I grew confusingly fascinated with how she made me feel. She seemed to be inhabiting a different world as me. There was something enchanted about it, something like going back to childhood about it.

Every now and then (sometimes every week, then she'd say no again for a month) she'd be ok to meet. But it was never as good as in the beginning. The more affection I showed her, the less she showed me. It came to the point where I was willing to give up multiple times, unsure what I even wanted from her. The chase felt wrong every second of the way, everytime we did meet and then parted ways I felt disgusted at myself. Like it was me manipulating her by trying to make her love me the way she seemed to in the beginning and hating myself for it. I knew that I would never desire to be in a relationship with her. She leads a non-functioning life. Making her part of mine would rob me of my own life, it would be me revolving around her disorder. But still, I wanted to seduce her into loving me. And it didn't feel like love on my part, but like heroin.

I assume she felt that need in me. Everytime I drew back, she would (rather easily) lure me back in, show me a little more affection. She always seemed to sense when I was lonely and weak. I was willing to try, still hoping to reverse the dynamic. You can hook up with me ten times and not fall in love, but the eleventh time, you will. That was my mantra. I had fallen into the trap of her intermittent reinforcement, fuelled by my need to have her validate me and let the narcissist know that he exists. This slowly chipped away at my sanity. I felt so much anxiety and emotional turmoil, her virus had hijacked my brain. All the while it felt like I was equipped with an ability to realise this and rationally understand it but an inability to do something about it. I reached the conclusion that this has to end a hundred times in my head, but I couldn't act on it. I'm an obsessional man and I've tended to suppress emotions most of my life (working on that now). She filled an intensity that was missing from my life.

However, she seemed mostly unaffected by the sort of relationship we were having. So last November, after sleeping at her place I decided to confess my feelings to her. I told her how wrong it felt but that I've been feeling miserable about her for a long time now and it's because I "think that I love you".  It wasn't love, I knew. But no woman had ever made me feel this way with this little amount of actual being-together. No woman had ever made feel the urge to tell her I loved her first. No woman had ever seen me close to tears, explaining how I felt that despite being a high-functioning, sucessfull individual, I was nothing but a shell, a shell that she filled with meaning. I explained to her how I felt she was abusing me and it felt as though she saw in me not a human but a dog, or even a toy. I told her how my need for her had that drug addiction feel to it.

She responded by saying that she had suspected that I love her but that she thinks at the same time I also hate her. She got really nervous, said she was disassociating and felt she was observing this situation as a third person. Then she told me that she didn't love me, that she couldn't love me because that would mean giving all of her to me and then she'd be "empty". Her family had taught her that all relationships ought to have a strong power imbalance. I believe this was her way of admitting to me that she had effectively worked to now hold power over me. To this day I admire how open she was when it actually came to talking about what she felt was wrong with herself. In reality, she had - albeit intermittently - made it very clear to me from the beginning that any pursuit of her would lead to this outcome. I just didn't want to see it.

I told her that I don't see a future for us and how our relationship was of cyclical nature, like we're stuck in a loop, every cycle inflicting more damage to me, making me obsess more. I felt hurt that all she had done in response to my emotional outbreak was talk about herself, about how she was experiencing all of this, not willing to really engage with anything I had said. It made me realize: this is a person unwilling to empathize and that will never change.

She didn't show any willingness to change our situation. But at the same time the conversation must have triggered her abandonment issues, for she got upset and told me I shouldn't be saying there's no future for us. She'd be going into hypnosis soon, she might be able to get better. "Maybe we'll be friends tomorrow, maybe we'll have a baby tomorrow. Anything can happen".

In the following weeks I started reading up on BPD and relationship dynamics typical for the disorder, here and on other sites. Suddenly a lot of her behaviour that was mysterious at first made a lot of sense to me. It hardened me in my resolve to cut her out of my life and to go no contact. I muted her facebook profile (something is stopping me from outright blocking her, as if that would be "too mean", unnecessarily hurt her). She spent Christmas in her home country with her family and is still there I suppose. On Christmas Eve she sent me a "Happy Holidays" text, I said "thanks, you too" and didn't any further.

Yesterday she texted me again, saying "how's ___ (the city were we live)?". It prompted me to write her one last, rather long message, explaining to her that in spite of or rather because of all the ways she made me feel I have decided I don't want to be in contact with her any longer and that I will stick to this decision. I told her I have a deep appreciation for her as a person and that whatever we had gave me a moment of happiness and that this is more than anyone should expect of another person to give them during their time on earth. Take care.

It still feels good today. I wrote this text for my own closure. There was no "will this give me a chance to better things, will it seduce her into loving me?" questioning going on in my head. It was all honest and it was the last piece of communication between us that I had needed. She replied saying "Ok. Understood". It stung a little to not have received anything meaningful in return, but it didn't hurt like I thought it would. I don't need closure from her, I wrote this text to give myself closure and I wanted to be courteous enough to inform her that I have decided to end this instead of just flat out ghosting her. Maybe she'll try to contact me again in two weeks, maybe in a month, maybe in a year, maybe never. But my last word to her has been spoken.

I thank her if for nothing else then at least for the self-awareness she has awoken in me. I am focusing on overcoming my codependent tendencies, trying to gain more self-value. The next time I emotionally engage with a woman, I'll know what I want out of it, why I feel certain ways and how I want to be treated. I will set boundaries according to my values and I will act accordingly. Not lose myself again in order to be loving someone else.

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This came out longer than expected! While I realise what I have experienced is minor compared to some of the stories on here of growing up/living with or being married to people with BPD it feels good having written this, if only for the very self-therapeutic aspect of it. English is my second language, I apologize if this isn't all as nicely phrased as it could have been.

This community is a beautiful place, I'll definitely continue reading posts and learning more about people with BPDs and myself. The help and compassion that is spread here is a rare thing to see.

hi NoCables and *welcome*


i can relate, as i know many members can. unfortunately though, if and when that person withdraws or rejects you, it can really cut to the core. realizing this, i would suggest, is to find a very important "key" not only as insight into your struggles, but in how to heal.


i have a bad history myself. i found that my breakup was pretty eye opening, and a good opportunity to look at the blueprint of my relationships, how i got where i was.



again, this is pretty insightful.


i dont mean to argue with, contradict, or dismiss the insight you have about yourself, just to suggest that we all struggle with this to certain degrees. to have our existence denied by someone we love is one of the most painful things imaginable, and youre not alone in this struggle.


to each their own, but ive always felt that blocking is a little d dramatic kind of move that can often be avoided. on one hand, we cant always be entirely responsible for the hurt someone else feels, but in this kind of situation, our hurt is our hurt, its not always best to act from our place of hurt, in a way that will hurt someone else, ya know? you wouldnt be a bad guy to block her, but if muting will suffice, no harm done.


that seems reasonable to me. it sounds like, given the circumstances, it went as well as it could, and that can really help.


self awareness is a catalyst for change. whats the plan? how are you going about trying to overcome this, and how can we help?